The Casebook of Sir Edward Coke
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Ian Ward
Ian Ward is Professor of Law at Newcastle University, UK. His research focusses on the inter-relation of law, literature and history. Amongst his more recent books are
English Legal Histories (Hart, 2019) andThe Play of Law in Modern British Theatre (Edinburgh UP, 2021). He is presently completing a book entitledThe Trials of Charles I , to be published by Bloomsbury in 2022.
Abstract
Sir Edward Coke, Jacobean Lord Chief Justice, is commonly regarded as being one of the great jurists in English legal history. In considerable part, for reason of his vigorous defence of the courts of common law against the seeming intrusions of royal prerogative, his running dispute with King James I is renowned, not least as a precursor to the civil wars which would later engulf James’s son, King Charles I. The purpose of this essay is revisit Coke and, more closely still, some of his most famous judgments, in order to trace the origins of the principle of ‘legality’. It will close in whimsical tones, by wondering what Coke might have thought of ‘legal’ regime put in place in the UK during the coronavirus pandemic.
About the author
Ian Ward is Professor of Law at Newcastle University, UK. His research focusses on the inter-relation of law, literature and history. Amongst his more recent books are English Legal Histories (Hart, 2019) and The Play of Law in Modern British Theatre (Edinburgh UP, 2021). He is presently completing a book entitled The Trials of Charles I, to be published by Bloomsbury in 2022.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Introduction to the Focus Great Powers with No Responsibility?
- Focus: Great Powers with No Responsibility?
- The Casebook of Sir Edward Coke
- Taking Responsibility for the Pasts
- Faithful to the Wor(l)d. Visual Texts, Responsibility and the Issue of Translation
- “I Would Prefer Not To”: A Lawyer Facing the Irresponsible Power
- The Power without Responsibility of the Gaze. The Letter and Spirit’s Eye in the Humanities, from the Italian Perspective to the Robot
- Research
- From Constitutional Transitions to the Great National Transition: A Constant and Obstinate Italian Narrative
- Who Watches the Watchmen? Law Diving into “Speaking Clouds”
- “Shakespeare’s Pioneer Migrant Othello”: Desire, Migration, Pathology and the Politics of Citizenship in The Nature of Blood
- Performing Identities in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: The Encounter with the Other Between Politics, Tourism, Migration and Culture in the Late Victorian Context
- Book Reviews
- Conor McCarthy: Outlaws and Spies: Legal Exclusion in Law and Literature
- Nicole Rogers: Law, Fiction and Activism in a Time of Climate Change
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Introduction to the Focus Great Powers with No Responsibility?
- Focus: Great Powers with No Responsibility?
- The Casebook of Sir Edward Coke
- Taking Responsibility for the Pasts
- Faithful to the Wor(l)d. Visual Texts, Responsibility and the Issue of Translation
- “I Would Prefer Not To”: A Lawyer Facing the Irresponsible Power
- The Power without Responsibility of the Gaze. The Letter and Spirit’s Eye in the Humanities, from the Italian Perspective to the Robot
- Research
- From Constitutional Transitions to the Great National Transition: A Constant and Obstinate Italian Narrative
- Who Watches the Watchmen? Law Diving into “Speaking Clouds”
- “Shakespeare’s Pioneer Migrant Othello”: Desire, Migration, Pathology and the Politics of Citizenship in The Nature of Blood
- Performing Identities in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: The Encounter with the Other Between Politics, Tourism, Migration and Culture in the Late Victorian Context
- Book Reviews
- Conor McCarthy: Outlaws and Spies: Legal Exclusion in Law and Literature
- Nicole Rogers: Law, Fiction and Activism in a Time of Climate Change
